


Are They or Aren't They Dating?

by Neverever



Category: Avengers Assemble (Cartoon)
Genre: Dating, Lost Pet, M/M, Mystery, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-25 08:30:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13830366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neverever/pseuds/Neverever
Summary: Sam can't tell if Steve and Tony are dating. But Scott wants Steve's room and the team can't find Thor's pet anywhere, except for his paw prints.





	Are They or Aren't They Dating?

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Cap-IronMan Anniversary Alphabet Challenge. Hope you like it!
> 
> I had P and my prompt was "paw prints." 
> 
> Big thanks to my beta.

“I’d like a better view.”

“But your suite is near your lab,” Natasha said. 

“It’s the view. It should better,” Scott repeated.

Sam half-listened to Scott complaining about his Tower suite assignment while eating his lunch. Clint stared at Scott and Natasha examined her nails. They had all heard plenty of Scott’s complaints over the past day. No one was inclined to help him at this point.

“Well, that’s what’s available for suites,” Clint said. He was building a bow out of straws, as if he was contemplating target practice with Scott as the target.

“What about Cap’s suite? It’s not like he’s using it,” Scott continued.

“Sure, Scott, sure. Don’t think Tony would allow that,” Clint said. “Tony obviously gave Steve the best suite for a reason.”

“That’s Steve’s room,” Sam said. “He’s definitely using it. Why should he move?”

“Whatever,” Scott mumbled. He stood up to leave. “I’ll ask Tony.”

Scott stopped at the doorway. “What’s with the paw print?” He gestured at a large muddy print on the tile.

Clint groaned. “Aw, Bilgey got out of Thor’s room. Again.”

“I’m splitting before Thor ropes us into another Bilgey-hunt,” Scott said. “I still have bruises from last week.”

~~~~~

Scott had a point about Steve not using his room much. The idea gnawed at Sam, who lived across the hall from Steve. 

Steve not being around much made sense. The team members led busy lives, even Clint, who put in a lot of time practicing his archery and working on his arrows. And Sam practically lived in his lab, working on various projects when he wasn’t at class at Empire State. There were times he went for a couple of days without sleeping in his own bed. So, really, he would have no idea when Steve came and went.

Sam reached over to grab more paper to work on his engineering homework. He heard a noise outside his room and went to open his door a crack on a whim. In case it was Steve returning to his room.

Except -- it was Tony knocking on Steve’s door. After midnight. “Hey, Steve, heard you were back from Washington.” Tony was in his usual jeans and black t-shirt, his hair disheveled, a grease spot on his cheek.

The door slid open and a smiling Steve pulled a laughing Tony into the room.

Huh. That -- that was something different. 

~~~~~

As far as Sam knew, Steve and Tony were the best of friends. Always together on missions, or working in the data crux, or torturing the coffee machine. 

Except now the thought that Steve was dating Tony had lodged in Sam’s brain, and he couldn’t shake it out. All he had was a gut feeling, what he saw in the hallway and a few dodgy scraps of evidence. What would Natasha do? She would observe and track. And that’s what he should be doing.

A couple of days later, Sam headed out to his lab to check some equipment before class. And ran into Steve leaving his room with an armful of clothes. “Hey, Cap. Laundry day?”

Steve laughed ruefully. “Had to come back -- I forgot I had clothes left in my closet.”

Sam was about to reply when they both saw more muddy paw prints. “Are those Bilgey’s?” Sam asked. “Strange. Thor usually tracks him down by now.”

Cap cocked his head to the side. “I’ve seen paw prints like that in the quinjet hangar too. Bilgey?”

“Is there another explanation?”

“Hmmm.” Steve rubbed his chin. “JARVIS would have alerted us if it was anything else.”

~~~~~

“What’s going on with Steve and Tony?” Sam asked Clint over video games a week later.

Clint grunted in response as he tried to off Red Skull for the fifth time that day and immediately died. “I have no idea what Hulk and Thor see in this game at all,” he complained as he went back to the last save point. Shield of Honor, based on Cap’s WWII battles, was a popular game around the Tower. Well, popular for everyone but Clint.

“Have you leveled-up the shield?” Sam suggested. “That’s what Thor does.”

“I’d like to see Cap play this game for once. He’s always talking about being some sort of advisor to the designers or whatever they were.” 

“Talking about Cap – what’s with him and Tony?”

“Nothing. Nothing out of the ordinary. Now, show me what I have to do with the shield.”

Sam narrowed his eyes. “I don’t think Steve’s stayed in his own bedroom the past week, that’s what I mean. And I think it has to do with Tony.”

“Aw, Steve’s probably off survival training or something. Or spending late nights in the gym – he doesn’t need much sleep. Tony’s been around.”

Sam shrugged. “Tony’s bedroom is on a completely different floor -- I don’t think any of us have ever actually seen Tony’s suite.”

“You pay the bills, you get the best room.”

“I’m saying that Steve could be up there all the time and we’d never know.”

“And I’m saying that there are lots of reasons you don’t see Steve around. Now -- show me how to level-up the shield, Kid Wonder, or I tell Hulk what really happened to the last of the pizza bagels.”

Natasha came into the room. “Guys, there are more paw prints all over the Tower.”

Clint grumbled, “Thor had better find that --”

An alarm sounded and Tony announced over the comms, “Avengers Assemble. We’ve got a Justin Hammer-sized problem.”

“Well, that blows the next two hours,” Clint said, tossing the controller on the end table.

~~~~~

Natasha roped Sam into tracking Bilgey. “Thor’s gone to Asgard with Hulk,” she said. “He’s not going to be happy if Bilgey’s still loose in the Tower when he gets back.”

“What about JARVIS? Shouldn’t he be able to find him?”

She pursed her lips. Then sighed. “JARVIS has nothing. No video, no heat signatures. All I can figure is bilgesnipes have magical properties that JARVIS can’t track. Besides, consider this practice for when we’re on a mission without an ever-present AI.”

Natasha had a plan to grid search for each of the floors of the Tower the Avengers lived on. She was exceedingly thorough and the tedious search was getting on Sam’s nerves.

“So, Steve and Tony?” he asked.

Operation Are They Dating was underway and Sam had noticed one or two things already. Minor things that might mean nothing. Cap’s hand lingering a couple of seconds too long on Tony’s shoulder at breakfast. A hip check and smile from Tony at the start of a training session. Nothing too obvious, just things that made Sam go hmmm.

Then there was that day he had gone over to the hanger to retrieve his gloves or something. He stopped at the door when he saw Steve, cowl pulled off and leaning against his skycycle, talking quietly with Tony in his designer suit. And Tony had a bright smile on his face, and he kept touching Steve’s arms. Steve ducked his head and laughed. The feeling hit Sam that he was interrupting something. He backed out carefully.

“What about ‘em?” Natasha checked the laundry room off the list. 

“Do you think that they are dating or what?”

“Did Scott put you up to this?”

“No!” Sam protested. “I was just wondering and Clint didn’t have anything to say.”

Natasha snorted. “Clint has plenty of opinions on Steve and Tony. You just need to get him in the mood to spill his guts.”

“But what about you?”

Natasha pointedly ignored him as she opened the pantry. Something had gotten into the storeroom -- food and boxes and packages were strewn all over the floor and a set of industrial shelving had been knocked to the floor. “Can you check the door?”

Sam checked the locking mechanism and JARVIS confirmed that the door was working correctly. “The door is good. Someone could have left it open.”

“And Bilgey had a field day in here.” She pointed to a couple of ripped bags in the corner. “Tracking that all over the Tower could explain the paw prints.”

Sam nodded. 

“We really need to find Thor’s pet now,” Natasha said. 

~~~~~

Maybe Sam should just go to the source itself.

Sam always hesitated to step into Steve’s room, even when invited. But Steve had his door open and his stereo was blasting Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey and the Andrews Sisters. Bravery took many forms and if he was going to get his answers, he was going to have to be brave. He knocked on the door. “Um, Steve?”

“Hey, Sam, come on in,” Steve replied cheerfully.

Steve was standing at his easel, working on his latest watercolor panorama of a recent Avengers battle. Sam gawked at the collection of Steve’s works hung on the wall – Tony in the data crux with a coffee mug, Clint shooting an arrow, Tony working on armor, Hulk and Thor arm-wrestling, Natasha taking down a robot, Tony staring out a window his chin in his hand. Steve was sketching out a scene featuring Sam in full flight with Iron Man in the distance. “Do you like it?” Steve asked, stepping back to give Sam a full view.

“My mom will,” Sam answered.

Steve laughed. 

Sam looked around Steve’s extremely neat suite. Every item had a place and was in that place, like a interior design catalog. There were couches in front of a bank of windows along one wall and Steve’s extraordinarily large bed in the middle of the room, perfectly made with sharp hospital corners at the ends. On one wall, a low credenza contained all of Steve’s art supplies and a small desk with a chair and laptop. On the other curving wall, there was a bookcase with books, WWII memorabilia and a large frame showcasing all of Steve’s military medals, including the Medal of Honor.

And of course, the huge, lovingly painted portrait of Tony in the Iron Man armor with Steve right next to him in the Captain America uniform hanging on the wall across from Steve’s bed. Where Steve could see it first thing in the morning when he woke up. Assuming he slept here.

Right. All perfectly innocent.

“Sam?” Steve asked.

“Did Natasha tell you that we think that Bilgey got into the pantry?”

“Yeah.” Steve swirled a brush in a glass of water. “He hasn’t done that before. She thinks he’s nesting somewhere in the Tower, not on our floors.”

“I don’t have time for that,” Sam blurted out while Steve just smiled.

~~~~~

Natasha’s Bilgey-hunt went for another couple of days until she called the rest of the team together in the living room. Thor and Hulk were still in Asgard. “Bilgey is in the Tower. Sam and I have been tracking him all over. This is what we know --”

Sam looked over at Steve and Tony sitting together on the couch. None of his business if his friends were secretly dating. Even if it looked like Steve had hooked his arm over the back of the couch and Tony. Or that they were playing footsie when they thought no one was looking.

Tony frowned. “JARVIS can’t help?”

“I’ve reviewed every bit of footage. And nothing has gone in or out of Thor’s suite while he’s been gone.”

“How about I send some ant patrols out?” Scott offered. “Ants can catch things that AIs can’t.”

“I have house-cleaning robots -- they would notice.”

“But, Tony, you don’t equip those robots with video recording,” Natasha said.

“For very good reasons,” Clint muttered. 

“Fine -- send out the paleolithic strike team. I’ll get the robots up and going. We’ll see who wins.”

Steve jumped to his feet, nearly knocking Tony over since they were sitting that close to each other. He pulled out his phone. “I have to get this,” he said apologetically to Tony. Then stepped out of the room.

“Sooo, Tony,” Scott started. “I was wondering if I could have Steve’s room.”

Tony blinked a couple of times. Instinctively, Natasha stepped back and Clint scooted to the other side of the room. “You. Want. Steve’s. Room.”

“He doesn’t need it since he’s always in your room. So give it to someone who could use it.”

Sam didn’t know that Tony could glare like that. Like he was shooting unibeams from his eyes. “No.”

“Aww, come on,” Scott wheedled.

“No. It’s Steve’s room. And it will always be Steve’s room. Steve could move to Asgard and it will still be his room.”

“Annnnyyyyway -- that’s all we know about Bilgey,” Natasha said. “JARVIS upgraded the locks on the pantry door. So be careful when you go in there -- the door could lock on you.”

Tony was muttering under his breath, stuff like ‘Steve isn’t in my room all the time.’ “I’ll have you know that Steve uses his room.”

“We weren’t saying that, Tony,” Clint said soothingly.

Shoving his phone into a back pocket, Steve returned back to the living room. “Who was that?” Natasha asked.

“SHIELD PR -- they want me to be Grand Marshal for a charity event. A fundraiser for veterans.” He turned to Tony. “Want to join me? -- it’s down in DC in a couple of months.”

“Sure,” Tony responded.

And Steve sat down next to Tony. “We should do something about dinner soon.”

Somehow, Sam didn’t feel that invite extended to the whole team.

~~~~~

Sam didn’t want to do it, but he finally broke down and dialed up his mom.

“Hi, darling,” Darlene said cheerfully over the phone.

“I’ve been wondering about something,” he said. He could hear loud noise in the background. “Wait, is this a bad time?”

“Never a bad time to hear from my baby. Now out with it.”

“Do you think Tony and Steve are dating? I know you didn’t get to spend a lot of time with them when you visited last year but –“

Dead silence on the other side of the phone. Sam could hear yelling and shouting in the background. “Mom?”

“Yes, Sam. Um, don’t you think that Captain America and Iron Man are too old for you?”

Sam faced-palmed. “No, Mom, I was asking if they are dating. Each other.”

“Ohhhh. I don’t know about that. I only follow the news about you, not your team. Anyway, I got to go –“

“Where are you?”

“It’s Friday night – I’m out with my friends at a karaoke bar. Talk to you Sunday, okay? Love you. Be good.”

~~~~~

Believe it or not, Scott’s ants scored a hit on Bilgey. Several hits. 

Scott was standing in the gym with a tracker that looked an awful lot like a remote-controlled car controller. He tossed another tracker at Clint. “I only have two.”

“We’ll split up into two teams,” Natasha said. 

“Where are Steve and Tony?” Sam asked.

Clint shrugged. “Steve said he had an errand at SHIELD and Tony’s off at a Stark Industries event. They’ll be gone for hours.”

Sam made sure he was paired up with Clint. Because that way, Clint couldn’t avoid his questions as they crawled through the Tower looking for ants and the ant trail to Bilgey.

“Natasha said that you had opinions about Steve and Tony,” Sam said.

“Sure do,” Clint said. “For one thing, Cap could use a vacation, and Tony has the worst taste in coffee.”

“Like if they were dating --”

“Ohhhhh, that.” Clint snorted, then started laughing. 

Sam rolled his eyes at him. The tracker pinged. “That way --” he pointed.

Clint continued, “Seriously, Sam, you’re the last person to clue into that. Even Fury had suspicions a couple of months ago. Natasha was onto it first thing.” He adjusted his tinted glasses. 

“What? Natasha was like --”

“All mysterious, all knowing? That’s Natasha for you. SHIELD Academy 101 -- how to worm information out of people by acting like you know everything. She’s pretty much 75% certain that Steve and Tony are dating. But there’s enough plausible-deniable stuff she’s not entirely convinced.” Clint shrugged again.

“Okay. But you’ve seen the wall --”

Clint threw up his hands. “Of paintings? I know! And the we-have-to-always-sit-next-to-each-other bit. Then there are the nicknames they use on the comms when no one is listening. ARGH. Just tell us and get it over with.”

“You said to Scott --”

“Look, Scott is scheming to get Cap’s room when Cap finally admits that he and Tony are living together. I’d prefer that Steve keeps his room as a painting studio more than Scott gets it as his room.”

“Petty, but understandable.”

“Plus -- we’re not entirely certain. Maybe they’re just super touchy-feely people.” 

Sam nearly choked from laughing. “Cap? Touchy-feely?”

The tracker prompted them to go to another floor. “Hey, wait.” Sam stopped at the elevator. “The tracker goes up another couple of floors.”

“And?”

Sam frowned. “It’s the penthouse -- Tony’s floor.”

“Thor’s not going to care where we found Bilgey -- he’ll care if we don’t. Tony will understand -- no one wants to be on the wrong side of the hammer.” Clint punched the button on the elevator.

The elevator opened up on a short hallway. The tracker kept pinging louder and louder as they headed down the short hallway. “Bilgey might be on the other side of that door,” Sam said.

“In Tony’s suite?”

“Looks like it. See?” Sam pointed to the door, which was slightly open.

He pushed the door open and walked into Tony’s suite. Which was as amazing as anyone would have expected for a billionaire with his own skyscraper in New York City. Clint moved quickly through the living room looking for Bilgey. Sam checked the tracker. 

Then Clint and Sam froze in place. An ungodly noise came from the left side of the suite.

“Tony is out of the Tower, right?” Clint stated.

“Uh-uh,” Sam replied.

“That must be Bilgey.” 

They both headed straight for the noise. And just as it registered with Sam that they were walking into Tony’s bedroom, Clint leapt backwards and shouted “OH GOD. MY EYES. MY EYES.”

“WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU, BARTON?” Tony shouted back. “GET OUT!”

Sam stood in shock as he watched Tony wrap himself up in a blanket and Steve sink under the sheets. They were naked. Very naked. One of them was clearly responsible for the noise that they had heard earlier. 

“Move it, Wilson,” Tony snarled.

He stepped back and nearly tripped over the pile of Steve’s clothes on the floor. Tossed there on the way to Tony’s bed. “Bilgey’s lost in your suite,” he said.

“Bilgey. In here. Right,” Tony deadpanned. Sam stared at the hickeys along his collarbone. “Wilson?”

With a hand covering his eyes, Clint replied, “In our defense -- Scott’s ants say that Bilgey is right here and we heard a noise --”

“I think I would know if a 200-pound alien dog-creature was hiding out --”

“Tony -- JARVIS can’t detect Bilgey,” Steve said from underneath the sheets. “He’s figured out how to open doors.”

Tony went for a pair of pants dangling off a chair. He grumbled about Thor’s pet and getting interrupted on his one night for himself and Steve. “He better be in here.”

It felt anticlimactic to find Bilgey holed up in Tony’s guest room closet. Sam lured him out with a steak from the leftovers of Steve and Tony’s date night dinner. 

“Hope he liked it,” Tony muttered. “It’s from Steve’s favorite steakhouse.”

“Okay, welp. We got what we came for,” Clint announced. He had rigged up a leash from a couple of Tony’s sheets. “You and Steve can go back to, uh, whatever you were doing. Sam and I are going to collect on our bet on Bilgey from Natasha.”

“Clint --” Tony warned.

“I don’t need to relive that ever again, Tony, I swear,” Clint said. He pushed Sam and Bilgey out the front door and down the hallway.

~~~~~

“That was a Thing. Finding Bilgey like that in Tony’s suite,” Clint said. He opened up the freshly delivered pizza boxes looking for a pepperoni slice.

Natasha popped the tab on her soda. “He’s now secured in Thor’s room, and not getting out anytime soon.”

“Which is great. Don’t need that again.”

“So, Tony and Steve. Yeah.” Scott said. He shook his head. “Does that mean that Steve doesn’t need his room?”

“Yeah,” Natasha replied. “No.”

Clint glared at Scott. “We are never talking about it.”

Sam shared a look with Clint. They sure got an eyeful of Tony and Steve earlier. No mystery left on any front there. “Nope. Definitely not.”


End file.
